Never Enough

At thirty-nine, Nancy Kissel had it all: glamour, gusto, garishly flaunted wealth, and the royal lifestyle of the expatriate wife. Not to mention three young children and what a friend described as "the best marriage in the universe."

That marriage  to Merrill Lynch and former Goldman Sachs investment banker Robert Kissel  ended abruptly one

Overview

At thirty-nine, Nancy Kissel had it all: glamour, gusto, garishly flaunted wealth, and the royal lifestyle of the expatriate wife. Not to mention three young children and what a friend described as "the best marriage in the universe."

That marriage  to Merrill Lynch and former Goldman Sachs investment banker Robert Kissel  ended abruptly one November night in 2003 in the bedroom of their luxury apartment high above Hong Kong's glittering Victoria Harbour.

Why?

Hong Kong prosecutors, who charged Nancy with murder, said she wanted to inherit Rob's millions and start a new life with a blue-collar lover who lived in a New Hampshire trailer park.

She said she'd killed in self-defense while fighting for her life against an abusive, cocaine-addicted husband who had forced her for years to submit to his brutal sexual demands.

Her 2005 trial, lasting for months and rich in lurid detail, captivated Hong Kong's expatriate community and attracted attention worldwide. Less than a year after the jury of seven Chinese citizens returned its unexpected verdict, Rob's brother, Andrew, a Connecticut real estate tycoon facing prison for fraud and embezzlement, was also found dead: stabbed in the back in the basement of his multimillion-dollar Greenwich mansion by person or persons unknown.

Never Enough is the harrowing true story of these two brothers, Robert and Andrew Kissel, who grew up wanting to own the world but instead wound up murdered half a world apart; and of Nancy Kissel, a riddle wrapped inside an enigma, a modern American woman for whom having it all might not have been enough.

In this singularly compelling narrative, Joe McGinniss  past master at exposing the dark heart of the American family in the bestsellers Fatal Vision, Blind Faith, and Cruel Doubt  explores his darkest and most disturbing subject yet: a smart and beautiful family so corroded by greed that it destroys itself from within.

Here is a family saga almost biblical in its tragic proportion but dazzlingly modern in flavor  and utterly unstoppable in its pulsating narrative drive. From the shimmering skyscrapers and greed-drenched bustle of Hong Kong to the moneyed hush and hauteur of backcountry Greenwich, McGinniss lures readers irresistibly forward, as this twisted tale of ambition gone mad and love gone bad rushes to its terrible, inexorable conclusion.

"McGinniss brilliantly deconstructs the highly dysfunctional Kissels...you can't argue with his ability to tell a good story. Readers of Never Enough get front-row seats to someone else's family horror fest."

-USA Today

"This is a mesmerizing tale, with more twists and turns than most steamy crime novels. The irony of two wasted lives makes this cautionary tale perfect reading for a chilly autumn evening."

-Tucson Citizen

"McGinniss...makes it absorbingly believable."

-New York Daily News

"In McGinniss's compelling account, the Kissel family  full of potential but riven by endless battles among the brothers and their sister and father  represent the American tragedy in which ambition and the pursuit of wealth turn deadly."

-Publishers Weekly

The author of the true crime classic Fatal Vision returns with a double-barreled homicide narrative. In 2003, investment banker Robert Kissel was murdered in his luxurious Hong Kong digs by his wife, Nancy, who drugged him with a beverage before bludgeoning him to death. The Milkshake Murder, as it became known, attracted international media attention; Nancy denied any memory of the killing but was convicted by a Chinese court and sentenced to life imprisonment. Even before the final deposition of the case, matters grew even more bizarre when Robert's brother, Andrew, was stabbed to death in his upscale Greenwich, Connecticut, home. Joe McGinniss's account of these family tragedies, one of them still unsolved, draws on his access to numerous Kissel relatives and friends.

Carolyn See

Readers have a real treat waiting for them in Joe McGinniss's latest book. Besides providing all the requisite gore of a true-crime narrative, Never Enough suggests that no matter how tasteless, mindless and incompetent we may be, we're perfect Einsteins in comparison to the Kissel family, which is capable of committing any maleficence known to man, but utterly incapable of doing it properly.The Washington Post

Publishers Weekly

The saga of the highly competitive and superambitious Kissel brothers-who both end up murdered-is the dramatic center of McGinniss's (Fatal Vision) newest account of the unsavory side of family life. Married in 1989, Robert and Nancy Kissel looked like the storybook couple: she was gorgeous, he was an upward bound investment banker. But Rob's family was a pressure cooker, and Nancy had a cruel, unforgiving streak ("No Amish church practiced shunning with more rigor"), and when Rob was transferred to Hong Kong, according to McGinniss, Nancy felt trapped and alone in the "gilded cage" of their luxury apartment complex. In 2002, she drugged Rob and bludgeoned him to death, then wrapped the corpse in a carpet and put it in storage. Despite her claims of self-defense against an abusive husband, a Hong Kong jury found Nancy guilty. The couple's three children, raised primarily by a nanny, were taken in by Rob's brother, Andrew, who was facing his own legal, marital and financial difficulties, and was soon found murdered in his Greenwich, Conn., house. The case remains unsolved. In McGinniss's compelling account, the Kissel family-full of potential but riven by endless battles among the brothers and their sister and father-represent the American tragedy in which ambition and the pursuit of wealth turn deadly. (Nov. 1)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Library Journal

The Kissel family appeared to have it all. Rob was an investment banker, married to a beautiful woman, with three lovely kids. His work led him to Hong Kong, where he was one of the bright stars of the banking industry. The Kissels lived in a luxury apartment community surrounded by wealth and privilege, and their marriage was seen as the "best in the universe." Rob's brother Andrew also seemed content; he worked in real estate and had homes in Vermont, New York, and Connecticut. However, behind the glorious faAade of these two families lay darkness and disaster. Rob's wife, Nancy, fought with him constantly over life in Hong Kong; he disagreed with how she was raising the children and her spending habits, while she hated his long hours and desire to control her. Andrew became addicted to drugs and alcohol and made fraudulent real estate deals. Both men were eventually murdered: Rob by Nancy and Andrew in a case that has never been solved. McGinniss (Going to Extremes) does a fine job of bringing together the numerous threads to create a riveting story. Narrated by Michael McConnohie, this book should find a home in libraries with true crime collections. [Also available as downloadable audio.-Ed.]Danna Bell-Russel

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Read an Excerpt

It was 8:00 P.M. Monday in Hong Kong, 6:00 A.M. Monday in Chicago when Nancy Kissel called her father, Ira Keeshin. She was crying.

"Rob and I had a huge fight last night," she said. "I'm pretty badly beaten up. I'm sure he broke some of my ribs. And I'm afraid. I'm afraid he's going to come back and hurt me more."

"Wait. He hit you?"

"He was drunk. It was horrible..." She started crying so hard she couldn't talk.

"Where is he now?"

"I...I don't know. He left. He could be anywhere."

"How are you? Have you been to a doctor?"

"I'm going in the morning. My ribs are killing me. I'm all beat up."

"And you don't know where Rob is?"

"He could be anywhere. I'm scared he'll come back."

"How are the kids?"

"They're fine. They don't know anything."

"Are Connie and Min there?"

"Yes, they're here."

"Make sure they stay with you. And keep the door locked. Double-bolt it. This is awful. What the hell happened?"

Instead of answering, Nancy broke down in tears again.

"Never mind. Listen, I'll get down there as fast as I can. If he comes back, call the police. Stay safe. That's the most important thing. Don't go out anywhere he might be able to grab you. Keep Connie and Min with you. Call some friends to come over. I don't want you alone until we know where he is."

She was sobbing.

"Maybe he just lost it for a minute Maybe he's ashamed, that's why he left."

"No. This wasn't the first time."

"What  "

"Just get here, please. I don't know what to do."

Ira was sixty years old, five seven, physically active, physically fit. He thought fast. He talked fast. He was impulsive. He was not a long-term planner. He had a quick sense of humor. He had a temper. He had a heart. He didn't have much contact with his first ex-wife, Nancy's mother, but he'd stayed on good terms with his second, even after he'd married for a third time.

He was the number two man at a specialty bread company that supplied bread and rolls of the highest quality to many of Chicago's finest restaurants and huge quantities of lesser-quality product to such national chains as Chili's, Cheesecake Factory, and TGIF.

He arrived in Hong Kong on Wednesday night. He had visited Nancy and Rob there before. Nancy had said she'd have a car and driver meet him at the airport, but he found no one waiting for him. He took a taxi to Parkview, the multitower luxury apartment complex where Rob and Nancy lived. He checked into the hotel on the grounds, walked to their building, and took the elevator to the twenty- second floor.

Nancy was thirty-nine but looked younger. She was short and blond, flashy and feisty. She had lively eyes and a brilliant smile. Her shapeliness did not suggest that she'd borne three children. Heads still turned when she entered a room. Normally. Now she looked haggard and scared.

"Has he come back?"

"No."

"Has he called?"

She shook her head.

He started to hug her.

"Don't! Didn't I tell you he broke my ribs?"

Ira smelled scented candles. He glanced around the living room. Dozens of candles were burning. He thought he smelled lilac and vanilla. But he was too tired to smell straight, too tired to think straight, almost too tired to stand.

"Will you be okay overnight?"

"I'll be fine."

"Then I'll see you in the morning after I've had a little sleep. We'll go to the police, file a missing persons report."

"And an assault and battery complaint."

"That, too."

After kissing each of his three grandchildren as they slept, Ira went back to the hotel and to bed.

Isabel was nine, Zoe six, and Ethan three. Rob and Nancy had arrived in Hong Kong in 1997 when Zoe was an infant. Ethan had been born there. Rob had been sent to Hong Kong to make money for Goldman Sachs and for himself. He'd done both. Three years later, he'd moved to Merrill Lynch to make more.

Ira had breakfast with the children while Nancy got dressed. He took the girls down to their school bus. They were thrilled by Grandpa Ira's surprise visit. Connie, the nanny  or amah, as nannies are called in Hong Kong  would take Ethan to his preschool later.

The morning was cool, the sky clear. November marked the end of Hong Kong's summer. In November, the daytime temperature dropped into the seventies and the humidity eased. The air pollution lingered  the pollution never went away anymore  but it was slightly less oppressive than in summer.

Ira and Nancy took a taxi to the Aberdeen Division police station on Wong Chuk Hang Road, near the Ap Lei Chau Bridge. As soon as they arrived and stated their business they were led to a conference room and joined by Sergeant Mok Kwok-chuen, who was ready to write down the details.

But instead of speaking, Nancy started to tremble, as if on the verge of a seizure. Then she closed her eyes and began to rock back and forth, her arms crossed tightly in front of her, moaning.

Ira tried to calm her. She quivered and sobbed. Sergeant Mok was attentive and solicitous. Ira told him that Nancy had been badly beaten by her husband, who had then gone missing and who was still missing after three and a half days.

Eventually, Nancy was able to stutter a brief account of what had happened. She said her husband had been drunk and had begun hitting and kicking her when she'd resisted his attempts to have sex. Then he'd left their apartment and she didn't know where he'd gone. The account came out in fits and starts. Nancy would speak a few coherent sentences, then slip back into a state in which all she did was tremble, moan, and cry.

Sergeant Mok explained that he could issue a missing persons report, but that before Nancy could press assault and battery charges a police doctor would have to examine her and record her injuries. He said that could be done at Queen Mary Hospital in nearby Pok Fu Lam, not far from the University of Hong Kong. Ira and Sergeant Mok helped her to a waiting patrol car.

It was almost noon when they arrived. Queen Mary, the teaching hospital for the medical school of the nearby University of Hong Kong, was one of the largest and busiest acute-care facilities in the territory. The lobby was overflowing with patients waiting to be seen. The Hong Kong patrolman who brought Ira and Nancy to the hospital explained to a receptionist why they had come. The receptionist told him that Nancy would have to wait her turn. They sat and they waited. And they sat and waited. Nancy did not like to sit and wait under any circumstances. She didn't see why she should be made to now. This was the sort of thing she'd been putting up with for six years. The Chinese did not seem able to grasp the obvious fact that certain people should not be made to sit and wait.

Ira asked the patrolman how much longer the wait would be. He didn't know. Nobody knew. Nancy had already been waiting for two hours. She said enough was enough. She was a busy woman. The children would soon be getting out of school. She and Ira left. Maybe she'd come back tomorrow.

That evening, Ira and Nancy brought Isabel, the nine-year-old, back to school for a dance lesson. Like most children of wealthy expatriates in Hong Kong, the Kissel girls attended the Hong Kong International School, the territory's most costly and prestigious day school.

After Isabel ran inside, Ira suggested that they drive down the hill to Repulse Bay. He thought the quiet beach, the peaceful waters, the open air, and sense of space  space being Hong Kong's most precious commodity  might comfort his daughter. On the way she stopped at a 7-Eleven and bought a pack of cigarettes. Ira had never seen her smoke. "I've been smoking for a while," she said. "Rob hated it. Fuck him."

They found a gazebo at the edge of the beach and sat down. They talked about how sad it was that everything had fallen apart. Rob and Nancy had been married for fourteen years. They'd been in Hong Kong for six. At first, Rob had worked for Goldman Sachs. After three years, he'd moved to Merrill Lynch. He had an important job. He made a lot of money. He was planning to make a lot more. Nancy enjoyed the royal lifestyle of the wealthy expat. She liked to spend. Suddenly, all that seemed over.

Ira was perplexed by Rob's disappearance. Nancy said Merrill Lynch had told her he hadn't been in his office all week. He found that hard to imagine. Rob was obsessed with his work. He was driven. He'd often said he could not rest as long as anyone he knew was making more money than he was. But now? Ira sensed that divorce was inevitable. Nancy said she'd been living a nightmare all year. No matter how sorry Rob might be, she couldn't forgive him this time. She'd take the children and move back to the United States and let lawyers hammer out the details. Ira, an emotional man, began to weep. So did Nancy. They sat together at the edge of the bay, his arm gently around her because he did not want to hurt her ribs, and cried together.

They met Isabel in the parking lot after the lesson. They could not talk about Rob in front of the children. Nancy had told them he was on another business trip. He traveled everywhere from Mumbai to Manila, and he was gone more than he was home, so the children didn't question the explanation.

Isabel climbed into the backseat of Nancy's Mercedes and asked her to play the Avril Lavigne CD. Her favorite song on it was "Complicated." On the way back to Parkview she and Nancy sang along.

Why'd you have to go and make things so complicated?

I see the way you're actin' like you're somebody else...

They dropped Ira at the hotel. He was still jet-lagged and worn to the nub by emotional strain. He went to his room and fell asleep.

The phone woke him at 11:00 p.m. It was Nancy.

"You've got to come over! You've got to come over right away! The police are here. They're asking me questions. There's just so many police. You've got to come over right away!"

Meet the Author

Joe McGinniss is the author of ten previous books, including The Selling of the President, Going to Extremes, Fatal Vision, Blind Faith, Cruel Doubt, and The Miracle of Castel di Sangro. He has five children and seven grandchildren. He lives in Massachusetts with the writer and editor Nancy Doherty.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

This book doesn't include the in depth research that was in Fatal Vision: when I was through reading that book, I was convinced that the man murdered his wife and children. In Never Enough, there was never any doubt. Nancy married into a very dysfunctional family and murdered one of them. Money: why she married, why she murdered. Save your money on this one.

DeeNadj

More than 1 year ago

I admit I too was frustrated by the lack of forensic details, like if his toxicology reports showed prolonged cocaine use - we get so used to that here in the U.S. - but the writer was limited by the scope the Hong Kong police's investigation. He can't report what they didn't release, and he certainly can't report what they didn't test for. It was an open and shut case, so maybe they didn't feel it was necessary to pour money into proving a case against Nancy when she admitted she was guilty. Also, the Vermont lover is still living, and obviously has to get by in life. He clearly doesn't want to be connected to the Kissel case, and I don't blame him. I wouldn't have consented to the writer using ANY identifying detail. He shared letters from Nancy, and told enough of the story to "tell the story" - he's done enough. You as a reader got the point, so Mr. McGinniss did his job. I will say though, I did feel this was a bit "half hearted" but I think it was written to show how your own heart and mind can lie to you, and convince you that no matter what you're looking at, there's always room, and time, for improvement and people can always change for the better. In some cases, this isn't true.

HongKongBill

More than 1 year ago

Having lived in Hong Kong during this time period myself, I was excited to read the portrayal of the charactors and the feel of life in Hong Kong. Mr. McGinniss has done an excellent job of researching the places and ex-pat life. It is a great, fast paced read that is riveting throughout.

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

Having lived out of the country, I really liked this book. I thought the descriptions of living out of the USA and the isolation that can cause was right on. I enjoyed following the true life crime and trial story that McGinniss brought to life.

Guest

More than 1 year ago

Anything by Joe McGinniss is always a good read, but I found some holes in important details about the case. For example, did Robert have a cocaine problem, or was it just Nancy slinging mud on his reputation. If he did, there had to be colleagues of his that knew and someone who sold to him. feel very, very sorry for the kids being bounced around like ping pong balls.

Guest

More than 1 year ago

This is not McGinniss's best effort. His research is usually more thorough. An easy read, for sure, but he didn't delve deeply enough into some of the characters, such as the Vermont lover. The Kissels were the classic dysfunctional family, and perhaps more psychological insight into this enigmatic family would have been helpful. Still, McGinniss remains one of the best true crime writers of our time. I recommend it.

senated

More than 1 year ago

I'n not sure what attracts me to these "true crime" books, especially the ones written by Mcginniss, but I think it's because while the people's behavior is in a strange way facinating, it's difficult to understand. The principals in this book are no different. They are rich,have every advantage life can offer but throw it all away by being selfish and and as the book says it's never enough. This is a story that has all the titilation you could want, money, sex, drugs, more money and murder. There are more victims in this story than the one murdered. An interesting story that makes me glad that my life would be judged as pretty boring by the characters in this book.